Parts of the Letter Reflection

At the beginning of our project Daniel gave a presentation on the parts of the letter. It was extremely informative. We learned all about x-height, which is what the ascender and desenders are measured off of, along with cap heights, baselines and more. It really taught me a lot about what all goes into these fonts. Before I didn’t even know what ‘serif’ was but now am informed about every little mark and its title. It was extremely helpful for this project especially. Fonts is actually one of my favorite things to work with. In drawing class, I typically opt to draw lyrics in fun fonts rather than anything else. This is probably why I enjoyed this project so much. 

As for learning about these fonts, it really helped us decide what font to use for the project. We had an option whether or not we used a serif font, and opted out of it since we feel as though it did nothing for our word. This was good to know and to think about so that our form turned out exactly as we had wanted and how we had it planned. 

A lot more goes into any project than one would expect, and this was just one of those times. It wouldn’t seem as though learning about the parts of letters and their labels would help out for creating meaning in a physical word, yet it definitely played it’s part. Overall, I’m glad I now have this information for future reference and future projects.  


“By learning the vocabulary designers and typographers can develop a greater understanding and sensitivity to the visual harmony and complexity of the alphabet.”